


A Harder Battle

by flawlix



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Character Study, Gen, RVB60Min
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-23
Updated: 2015-04-23
Packaged: 2018-03-25 09:06:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3804718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flawlix/pseuds/flawlix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Once, she knew kindness."</p><p>Or, four times Vanessa Kimball was kind in the middle of a war, and one time someone else returned the favor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Harder Battle

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the RVB60Min [week 2 prompt](http://rvb60min.tumblr.com/post/116320094234/4-13-2016-theme). Except it got out of hand and took a lot longer than 60 minutes. 
> 
> Also on [tumblr](http://flawlix.tumblr.com/post/117148215714/once-she-knew-kindness-or-four-times-vanessa).

“If you have to be anything, Nessie, be kind,” her grandmother once said. “Even when it’s hard. Be good to other people.”

It was not the first lesson her grandmother would try to teach her, nor the last, and when she thinks back to that day, the words themselves are not what stand out in her mind. She recalls, in sepia-toned memory, the heat of the soil, the grassy scent of freshly planted flowers, and the brush of her grandmother’s dirt-stained fingers against her cheek as she plucks a beetle from her hair and sets it aside.

But those words – _be kind, even when it’s hard_ – take root in her soul and stay with her for the rest of her life.

 

**_1\. Sometimes kindness is stopping to help when no one else will._ **

 

What people often forget is that the war didn’t start with violence. It was not the zero-to-sixty, no-warning descent into chaos that the Feds like to spin. The decline was gradual: politics and protest, failed negotiations, and the thrum of revolution under the skin of those who would later become the “rebels.”

For Vanessa Kimball, the war started with a riot.

No. For Vanessa Kimball, the war started with a _protest_.

The Armonia Riots. The last true protest before everything went to shit. Later, the New Republic would blame the Feds for “inciting violence” and the Feds would blame the New Republic for “disturbing the peace” and “endangering the public.” The only thing both sides can agree on is that the Armonia Riots were the beginning of the war.

Vanessa was there and couldn’t tell you the exact moment that peaceful protest turned to violence.

One moment, she’s marching, flashing holo-sign in one hand (“If you kill the planet, you kill us all!”) and her friend Myra’s hand clasped in the other (Myra would eventually become one of the first casualties of the war, a civilian death from a time there were still civilians).

The next moment, there is screaming, the sound rolling back to her from the front of the march like an ocean wave. A cacophony of noise: the pounding of feet on pavement, voices echoing against the walls of Armonia’s streets, the pop-hiss-bang of detonating flash grenades and tear gas canisters. Her section of the march grinds to a halt, startled into confusion by the noise.

Then police in white riot gear pour from the side streets, taking advantage of the confusion to cut through the mass of protestors, carve the march into manageable pieces. In front of her, Vanessa sees a man crumple under a baton blow, sees him cuffed and handed off to another officer in the span of a blink.

The first thing she thinks is, _Mom’s going to kill me._ There’s no emotion tacked onto the thought, no fear or anger. It’s simple fact. She should not be here. She promised she would not be here.

Her parents are going to ground her for a year.

Then Myra yanks her hand, and the angry roar of the panicked crowd fills her ears. Armonia’s warning sirens blare to life, an eerie screeching wail that raises the hair on her neck. Some combination of animal terror and herd instinct takes over.

Vanessa runs.

They all run.

But they have nowhere to run, roadblocks slamming shut in front of them, behind them, around them. Where there are no roadblocks, there are police with batons and tear gas and handcuffs. Even as she runs, Vanessa is aware they’re being cut into smaller chunks, more manageable. Easier to arrest.

Except Vanessa knows the streets of Armonia the way only a teenager can. Knows its alleys, its secrets, its escape routes.

She breaks from the pack, yanking Myra after her. Dives toward an alley, a crack between buildings so narrow that it barely deserves the name.

“Halt!”

An officer steps into her path, and she loses her grip on Myra’s hand. They dodge around him in tandem. He grabs for her, snags a few strands of her hair, but she’s faster; he misses. Ahead of her, Myra tears down the alley, fleeing toward a different street, another part of the protest.

They could escape. They’re going to escape.

Except...

“Wait! Wait for—“

The shout – a girl’s voice, young and frightened – is the only reason Vanessa turns around. She thinks she knows the girl’s face, from school, a year or two younger. The girl stumbles away from the crowd, toward Vanessa and the alley.

Toward the white-clad officer. Who shoves her, hard, back into the mass of people. Who watches as she falls. Who doesn’t help her when she goes down in the middle of the frantic crowd and disappears under their feet.

“Hey, what are you doing? Help her!”

No one hears her shout, or cares. The officer is too distracted by the crowd to notice that Vanessa isn’t fleeing anymore. The girl doesn’t reappear.

Vanessa freezes for what feels like a very long time, torn between _Run away_ and _Do something_.  

“Ness!” Myra calls behind her.

If she looks, she can see the girl, curled tight in on herself, buried under the mad rush of people, heedless of others in their panic. They’re going to hurt her.

“Nessie, come on! We have to go!”

Vanessa sprints back the way she came. Blows past the officer and into the crowd, elbowing people out of the way. It takes her two tries, but she yanks the girl up by her collar. There’s blood on the girl’s face where someone kicked her; her eyes are teary and wide.

“Thank you! Thank you, thank you,” the girl mutters. They stagger, together, back toward the alley.

“Hey! You, girl!” The officer from before reaches for them. “Stop right there!”

The girl makes a small, frightened noise, so quiet that Vanessa wouldn’t hear it over the noise if she wasn’t so close. Vanessa pushes her firmly toward their escape route, toward Myra, who she can see reluctantly moving back toward them. The girl staggers, then find her feet enough to run; Vanessa makes to sprint after her.

That’s when the officer’s hand closes around her arm, yanks her hands behind her back. Between one step and the next, she’s on the ground, tasting asphalt with cuffs around her wrists. 

Later, much later, after the riots quiet (days later), after her parents bail her out of jail (she’s definitely grounded), after she’s suspended indefinitely from school for truancy and delinquency (government excuses to keep her away from her peers where she could spread dangerous ideas)... well, after a lot of things, she finds out that Myra and the nameless girl escaped. She can’t say she regrets that.

 

**_2\. Sometimes kindness is just being there, because that’s all you can do._ **

 

The ancient Warthog kicks up a red cloud of dust as the convoy tears through the canyon. But for the dirt, Vanessa would be able to watch the canyon unfold behind them, unnatural desert spilling away into the distance.

Instead, all she can see is red.

There’s a lot of red inside the Warthog, too. Red dirt coating everything, weapons, armor, the vehicle. Red stripes painted on tan armor. Red blood pooling between the ridges of the Warthog’s bed.  

Jesus, there’s a lot of blood. The dirt sticks to it in dark, rusty clumps, makes it look chunky and fake, like the blood in a B-rated horror movie.

The Warthog hits a ditch, jolts her into the turret. Her faceplate cracks against it hard enough that her HUD winks out. She clutches at it for balance, shifts her rifle back across her shoulder and fumbles to make sure the safety is on. Just in case she jostles hard enough to hit the trigger. There are enough bullet wounds going around without a misfire. 

Her HUD flickers back to life after a few seconds.

Beside her, her squadmate lets out a pained groan, loud enough that she can hear it over the roar of tires on dirt and overtaxed engines. A mask of red dirt coats his face, cut by runnels of sweat.

Dirt sticks to the shrapnel holes in his guts as well, sticks to the biofoam, but she’s trying very hard not to look at that. The jerky speed of the Warthog is bad enough; no reason to give herself more cause to vomit.

The next buck throws her towards him so that she has to drop her gun or fall on him. She catches herself, hands on either side of his face. The butt of her rifle swings down to tap against his jaw. He doesn’t react, eyes squeezed shut, fingers tearing at the sides of the Warthog for something, anything to grasp. There are scratches in the ridged metal next to his hands. But for the armored tips of his gloves, he would’ve torn his own fingertips.

She sits back. Gently, gently, reaches a hand toward his shoulder. 

His eyes snap open. “Help me,” he wheezes. “Please, it hurts...”

“I...”

There’s nothing she can do, IFAK depleted. They’ve packed his wounds twice with biofoam, and they’re still hours from base, more wounded in the other Warthogs around them. She has nothing to give him.

His eyes are wet, bloodshot, and very blue. Very desperate. He turns his face away from her when he realizes she’s not going to do anything, breath sobbing between clenched teeth.

“Sir,” she says, turning to her sergeant. “Sir, can I have your—“

“No, Private Kimball.” He cuts her off without looking at her. He’s crouched against the side of the Warthog, rifle raised and resting against the edge like he expects the Feds to assault the convoy any moment. “It’s not going to do any good anyway.”

The Warthog hits another divot, jarring all of them. Her squadmate lets out a tight, pained curse. She glances back down at him, forcing herself to look at his injuries this time. The biofoam is dissolving; she can see it leaving sticky dirt trails on his armor and exposed skin.

His lips move soundlessly, either a prayer or a plea.  

So she takes her glove off. Reaches down, carefully removes his glove as well, and laces their fingers together.

He grips her hand so hard she feels her bones creak, both of their knuckles white. Later, she will have finger-shaped bruises on the back of her knuckles that last for days.

“What’s your name?” she asks. “Your first name.”

“C-connor,” he says, and his fingers spasm against hers as the vehicle rocks.

“Okay.” She runs her thumb against the back of his hand. “Okay, Connor. You’re gonna be okay.”

She’s lying, of course, but that doesn’t really matter.

 

**_3\. Sometimes kindness is sharing even when you have nothing to share._ **

 

Ten days in a frigid mountain pass, and it’s not even the Feds’ fault. All they can blame is the freak, out-of-season snowstorm that trapped Kimball’s squad and two others en route to a supply raid. The mission timeframe was two days, at most. Hit-and-run.

Which of course means they have no supplies beyond the basics: a handful of MREs and protein packs each; a few blankets stuffed in the vehicles and the bivvys in their personal packs; their guns and the armor on their backs. The armor is probably all that keeps them from freezing to death.

They get to know each other very, very well during those ten days, huddled together for warmth around the low fires that are all they dare light this deep into Fed territory. Even if the Feds would be just as stymied by the storm, better safe than sorry.

They also develop a new appreciation for the limited offerings of the mess back at base.

Almost worse than the hunger and the cold is the boredom. After setting up camp – shelter strung up the best they could manage, latrines dug, rations divvied – there wasn’t much left to do but wait for the pass to clear. They came out here looking for a fight, and instead they’ve been sitting around with their thumbs up their asses in the snow for over a week.

Even snowball fights lost their appeal after three days. They rotate patrols and watches just to have something to _do_.

Not that staring off into white-coated wilderness, alone, in the freezing cold is much better. Kimball’s made it her personal mission to make sure whoever is on guard duty is warm enough.

“Think fast, Private,” she says, tossing a blanket over Private Ocampo’s head before she can react.

Ocampo yelps and paws at the blanket, nearly toppling off the crate she’s sitting on. She wraps it gratefully around her shoulders once she manages to unsnag it from her armor. “Thanks.”

“But wait, there’s more!” Kimball presents a small, steaming tin cup to her. “Coffee. Or, well, it wants to be coffee... it’s really just hot water with a pinch of instant grounds.”

It also tastes like dirt, but hey, at least it’s warm and it smells like coffee. Sort of.

Ocampo smiles a little and takes the cup, holding it to her mouth without drinking to let the steam waft over her face. “Thanks, Lieutenant.”

“How’re you holding up?” Kimball nudges her to move over and sits down on the crate next to her, pressing close enough to share her warmth a little. “Anything interesting happen?”

“Thatcher and Ahmed still think we don’t notice the two of them sneaking off together,” she says, taking a sip of the coffee-water and making a face. “Also, it didn’t snow. So that’s a good sign?”

“Patrol says we might be able to start digging our way out tomorrow. I’d say it’s a good sign.”

Ocampo nods, a tired sort of head bob. The cup trembles in her hands, just a little; Kimball might not notice it if she wasn’t sitting right next to her.

“Hey, when was the last time you ate?” Kimball asks casually. 

“Oh.” Ocampo flushes a little. “Uh, yesterday, I think. Or maybe the day before?”

“You need to eat something.” Ocampo reddens even more, and mumbles something so quiet that Kimball can’t hear it even though she’s sitting right next to her. “What?”

“I’m out,” she says, looking sheepish. “I was hungry, you know? And I thought we’d be out of here faster.” She picks at the edge of the cup, refusing to look at Kimball.

“Bet you’re pretty hungry now.”

“Yes, ma’am.” 

Kimball sighs, and plucks the cup from her hands. “I’ll be right back.”

She’s down to her last MRE and a protein bar herself, but if they really do manage to dig their way out within the next couple of days, she can make that work. And Ocampo won’t be able to help them dig if she passes out from hunger. Besides, if they don’t get out soon, they’re all going to be a lot hungrier.

That’s how she rationalizes it, at least, when she digs out the MRE from her pack and rips open the packaging. She removes the main course and its heater, leaves the rest for later. She makes another “coffee” while she waits for it to heat.

She doesn’t manage to sneak up on Ocampo this time; the girl turns around as soon as she smells the food, and jumps up. The blanket falls off her shoulders and into the snow.

“Oh no! Lieutenant Kimball, I can’t take that!”

“Stop that,” Kimball says, thrusting the package forward. “You really need to eat something.” She shakes the package. “Come on. It’s chicken stew. It’s terrible, I promise.”

Ocampo takes the package from her reluctantly. Hands free, Kimball plucks up the fallen blanket before it can get too wet from the snow and folds it on top of the crate, balancing the tin cup in the crook of her arm while she does. When she looks up, she sees Ocampo holding the food out in front of her, pinched between her fingers like a live snake.

“Private, don’t make me order you to eat that.” She plops back down on the crate and pats the seat next to her. “Would it make you feel better if I ate it with you?”

Ocampo sits down next to her. “Maybe, a bit.”

She doesn’t move to eat, so Kimball takes the package from her, opening it to let the steam escape into the cold air. She takes a small bite and shoves the food back into Ocampo’s hands. It really does taste awful.

Ocampo takes a reluctant bite. “Wow,” she says around her mouthful. “That’s bad. I’m starving, and it still tastes like feet.”

Kimball grins. “Eat your feet, Ocampo.”

 

**_4\. Sometimes kindness is making the right call even when it isn’t the practical one._ **

 

White is not a good color for camouflage.

It’s a series of extremely fortuitous events that even let them capture the Fed scout in the first place. His camo unit happens to fail right as their small convoy passes. Kimball’s lieutenant happens to be looking in the right direction to spot the flash of white against the foliage. They happen to catch up to him before he can disappear too far into the jungle.

She supposes it should reassure her that even the Feds’ fancy tech fails occasionally, but all it really means is that they won’t be able to rely on the commandeered camo unit themselves. Meanwhile, she’s got a Fed prisoner to worry about while halfway through a mission.

It would be easier if the Fed wasn’t some dewy-eyed boy who looks like he should be skipping fifth period with his friends, not fighting a war. The kid looks about two seconds from crying every time she glances at him sideways. Still, he remains stubbornly silent – won’t even tell them his name.

Felix isn’t helping.

“I’m just saying, he could have valuable information. This could be an opportunity.”

“I don’t care. I’m not torturing him.”

“That’s okay; I’ll do it.”

“ _Felix_.” She raises a hand to rub at her eyes and block out the sight of the overeager ball of orange sadism next to her, forgetting for a moment that she’s wearing her helmet. Her fingers knock against her visor, and she sighs. “We don’t torture people.”

“Sure you don’t,” and the way he drawls it makes her uneasy, makes her think there are things happening in the New Republic that she doesn’t know about, “That’s why you hired me.”

She glares at him. “I sure as hell didn’t hire you.”

He clicks his tongue at her, unfazed. “No, but your superiors did. Someone’s gotta do all your dirty work for you.” He idly spins a knife in his fingers, eyeing the kneeling Fed soldier. When he takes a half-step forward, the Fed cringes away from him, nearly hiding his face behind her lieutenant’s legs. Felix chuckles a little; it’s not a nice sound.

“Hey.” She reaches over and snaps her fingers in front of his visor to get his attention. “Stop that. We’re not doing this.”

“You don’t win wars by playing nice,” he says, cocking his head at her. She’s gets the impression that he’s rolling his eyes at her, like he’s judging her bad taste in movies rather than her desire not to _torture_ someone. “How have you not learned that yet?”

“My mission, my rules. Leave the kid alone.”

There’s a moment of tension, the two of them staring at each other, while she wonders if he’s going to ignore her orders. Then he shrugs, sheathing the knife in his hand and taking a step back.

“Your mission, Captain Kimball,” he agrees, and he doesn’t sound sarcastic, which means he probably is being sarcastic. “Just kill him and be done with it, then.”

The Fed kid blanches, turning to look up at her with huge, wet eyes.

The silence drags on for a good minute before Felix breaks it.

“Oh, come _on_. You’re not going to kill him?”

“Nope.”

“So, so what? You’re gonna drag him along with us? Tie him up in the back of a Warthog and hope he doesn’t get in the way and shoot us all in the back?”

“Yep.” She pops the ‘p’ a little.

“He’s a Fed!” Felix throws up his hands. “You’re about to go shoot a whole lot of them!”

“It’s called ‘mercy,’ Felix,” she says calmly.

“It’s called ‘stupidity,’ and it’s going to get you killed.”

She ignores him. “Chander,” she says to her lieutenant. “Secure him. Make sure there are no weapons or comms anywhere in his reach. Gag him if you have to.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

The Fed actually is crying a little now, either from relief or fear or just because he’s overwhelmed. She doesn’t know what’s going to happen to him once they get him back to base. They’ve never taken prisoners before. For all she knows, she’s saved him from torture and execution in the field, only to hand him over to her commanders for him to face the same.

“Hey, Captain?” This time, Felix doesn’t bother to hide the sarcasm in the way he says her rank. “If this goes south, that’s on you. I hope you can live with that.”

She doesn’t bother to look at him, just waves for her troops to get back into position so they can move out.

“I’m living with myself just fine, thanks.”

 

**_+1.  And sometimes kindness is the right person saying the right thing at the right time._ **

 

_“How did you convince Kimball to go to the Capital?”_

She buried her soldiers today. The Feds did, too. They had a whole ceremony about it, gave speeches about unity and loss. She doesn’t remember most of it.

_“Vanessa? Oh, she was easy.”_

Well, she doesn’t remember the speeches. Just rows and rows of bodies, stripped of armor, laid out side by side. The Feds still had dress uniforms, but hers? They buried them in their body armor.

_“We’ve been playing these guys for years.”_

They’ve been fighting a war of attrition for years. Now it looks like they might have something like a truce. But her soldiers aren’t getting pulled out of the muck and up to the same place as the Feds.

_“They just ate it up.”_

No, the Feds have been knocked down to their level. Low on food, low on ammo, low on safety, low on everything, and completely, utterly outgunned.

And no peace. Not yet.

_“Vanessa? Oh, she was easy.”_

How the hell had she missed this? There must have been something – some sign she overlooked, in all the years of working with Felix. Some story that didn’t match up, some crack in the façade that she should have seen. Could have seen.

But she just wanted to believe, didn’t she? He gave her hope.

_“Vanessa? Oh, she was easy.”_

And how many lives had her failure cost, her failure to see? All of the ones they buried today, certainly.

_“Vanessa? Oh, she was easy.”_

A hand closes around hers before she can hit the playback again, pauses the recording. Kimball starts, nearly jerking her hand away, then follows the hand up to its owner’s face.

“Oh.” She sinks back into her chair and pulls her hand away. “Agent Carolina. I didn’t hear you come in.”

“Sorry. I’m very quiet,” Carolina says. She looks up at the screen overhead, Felix frozen mid-monologue. “Have you been to bed yet?”

Kimball’s staring at the screen, too. The words don’t register right away. “Huh? No. Haven’t had a chance.”

“It’s four in the morning, General. You should get some sleep.”

“You’re up.”

“No, I got up. Out of bed. There’s a difference.”

Kimball makes a noncommittal noise and continues studying the screen. There are differences between the Felix she knew and the one on the screen. Differences in the way he moves, holds himself. Maybe those were the pieces she was missing.

“I’m glad you’re here, actually,” Carolina says, breaking her fixation.

“Oh?”

“Yeah, I wanted to ask your permission to check out a few of the Charon outposts. The ones near the cities have all been abandoned, but I think they’re still planetside. I’d like to do some recon before taking a team out to deal with them.”

Kimball snorts. “I’m not your commanding officer. You don’t have to ask me for permission.”

“It’s your war.” Carolina shrugs. “Seems only fair.”

“Fair,” Kimball echoes. Carolina shrugs again. Sighing, Kimball scrubs tiredly at her face and stands. “Do what you want, Agent. You can’t fuck this up any more than I already have.”

Felix’s helmet flickers at her from the paused screen overhead. She resists the urge to flip him off and shuts the screens down instead. Carolina watches her with a frown as she ejects the drive with the recording from Tucker’s helmet cam and tucks it safely away in her coat pocket.

Carolina’s right; she needs to sleep. Especially if she’s going to have to deal with Doyle in the morning.

Carolina catches her arm as she turns to leave, stopping her. Kimball bites her tongue, resists the urge to snap as Carolina studies her face, frown deepening.

This is the first time they’ve spoken privately, and she’s not sure she’s seen the Freelancer out of armor before. She’s certainly never seen her up close. Her hair is red, but faded and growing in dark blonde at the roots. It falls out of her ponytail in uneven chunks, ends ragged like she sawed at it with a dull blade at some point.

And she looks tired, as tired as Kimball feels. It’s there in the hollows under her eyes and the lines on her face. The kind of tired that never really goes away.

“You’re a good person, General Kimball,” Carolina says after a moment. She jerks her head at the now blank screens. “Don’t... don’t let _him_ take that from you.”

“What?” It’s not a question. She pulls her arm out of Carolina’s grasp, backing up a step.

“What he did?” Carolina gestures at the screens again. “That’s on him, not you. Don’t let something someone else did to you change who you are.”

The words hit a sore spot, somewhere deep in her chest. She wraps her arms around herself and says nothing.

“I’m just saying,” Carolina continues. “You’re still standing here. Your soldiers are still standing here. Despite everything he – _they_ – did, you’re here. So be here. Keep fighting. Chorus needs you.”

She says it so passionately that Kimball lets out a startled laugh. Carolina smiles. It looks a little self-deprecating, but it crinkles her eyes and softens her face. She looks less tired when she smiles.

“Was that too much? I took it too far, didn’t I?”

“No,” Kimball says. She’s smiling, too. “No, it was a nice pep talk. Very inspiring.”

“Any time. Also,” Carolina holds up the drive with Felix’s speech. “You don’t need this. Stop torturing yourself.”

Kimball’s hand flies to her pocket reflexively. Sure enough, the drive is gone. “Impressive.”

“Trick I learned from an old friend.”

“You know I can just get another copy, right?”

“Yeah,” Carolina says, and snaps the drive between her fingers like it’s nothing. “But you won’t.”

“I won’t?”

“No. You have a war to finish, General.”

“Vanessa.”

“What?”

“You should call me ‘Vanessa,’” Kimball says. “And thank you, Agent Carolina.”

“Just Carolina,” she replies. “And you’re welcome.”

**Author's Note:**

> Concrit is welcome.


End file.
